Tuesday 10th August 2010 Haute Rives. Day off - an afternoon out in the car.

La pierre a la femme - the stone woman

Sancerre

Overcast and muggy. The neighbours were doing more painting. We went into Briare in the car shopping at Carrefour Market. Didn’t need much, Mike bought two containers of oil. He’d got some used oil to dispose of, so we went in search of a déchetterrie. Couldn’t find one in Briare so we went home. Put the stuff away and had some lunch. Mike was going to start on the front deck but said it was too late to start so we went out in the car. In Chatillon I spotted a sign for a déchetterrie so we did an about turn and took our used oil to the recycling centre. A large lady in fluorescent trousers and vest was in charge. Back into town then south towards Sancerre. Paused to take photos from the hilltop across to Sancerre. Travelled northwest through the Collines du Sancerrois, through Cézancy and Neuilly, then north to La Chapelotte and southwest to Henrichemont. 

Wild boar piglet - so cute when they're small and stripey! 

As we went through a tiny hamlet Mike spotted a sanglier (wild boar) piglet so we did a u-turn to go back and take a photo. The little piggy was all on her own and came towards the car when I called her. We drove around the triangle of grass where she was grubbing and she came towards the car as if she were used to people feeding her but walked off when we didn’t offer anything edible. She must be tame as she wasn’t in the slightest bit afraid of us or the car! South through the Berry orchards through St Palais and St Martin-d’Auxigny to find a Stone Age menhir called La Pierre à la Femme. For once it was where the sign said it was, next to a large orchard, and we stopped to take photos. Set Lucy Sat Nav to do the map-reading to return to the boat. Ignored a few of her turnings and went back via the D58 through forest Méry-ès-Bois, Presly and turned off at Ennordres (Lucy wanted to go north to Aubigny-sur-Nère, a large town) to go across country to Oizon, Concessault and back to Chatillon.

Monday 9th August 2010 Haute Rives. Day off.

8.6°C - single figures!! A chilly night after all those open skies. Hotter and sunny with big white fluffy clouds. The skipper of the pénichette returned briefly in his car and the guy from the house came out to talk to him. (He’d already told us that another tjalk lives here but is away on holiday, at present on the Saône at Corre so he won't be back for several weeks) Mike got on with some jobs - lifting the section of floor in front of the shower to clean and re-oil the bottom plate. Paused for lunch. After lunch Mike carried on drilling holes (for oiling the bottom plate), one in the floorboards between the set of drawers and the bed and one in the wardrobe, then one in the keelson close to the front doors (likewise for oiling the bottom plate). The night sky was clear again so we spotted several meteors.

Sunday 8th August 2010 Briare to Haute Rives. 5 kms no locks

Sunny and warm. Up early. Mike went for bread and when he got back we all decided to move on a bit as we were fed up with the dog alley stink. Charley set off first. Mike chatted with an American couple off a hire boat, they were finishing their holiday soon and were off to Paris for a few days on Monday then London and a flight back to Rhode Island, New York. They were interested in hiring a boat in the UK next time as they said they were tired of not being understood! Nick ‘phoned to say the mooring was OK at Haute Rives and there was room for us, we said we’d see them later. We set off at 12.40 p.m. just after the American couple left. It took us a while to get the pole, stakes and ropes in and, of course, as it was Sunday afternoon promenade time we had a large audience. No boats moving as we crossed the aqueduct but loads of promenaders. One guy was thumbing a lift, we all laughed as he was going in the opposite direction until a couple of minutes later when he started racing back and shouting. An elderly man dropped a bag and kept walking towards him. The hitch-hiker picked up the bag and carried on to the picnic tables at the end of the aqueduct. We reckoned someone had seen he’d left his picnic lunch bag on the table and walked off with it! Strange thing is he didn’t say anything at all to the old man as he passed him. Peace and quiet returned as we left the aqueduct behind. A couple of boats, Amalia and Lagon who had gone past us the day before, were moored in the first layby and a couple more boats were moored along the bank after the first set of flood gates having lunch. We moored in front of Charley at 1.45 p.m. at the former Berry Plaisance hire base. Said hello to the man from the house as he came down to his boat which was moored at the uphill end of the quay. He remembered us from last time, which must be more than ten years ago. Nick said he’d been washing his boat down earlier. Later he and his wife took their cruiser for a trip down to Briare and back. The Internet was still on 3G. When Mike returned he said that as he passed the two boats moored in the layby just before the aqueduct the second one, Amalia, had decided to wind and instead of doing it in the layby where it was wider, he had winded by the boat in front, Lagon, and the canal wasn’t wide enough so he had jammed across the canal, with his dinghy, (which was hanging on davits on his stern), dragging along the superstructure of Lagon. Not very clever. Then when Mike was setting off to come back in the car he had come up to a road junction where just one car was coming towards him at speed, so he checked the other way, saw the passing car out of the corner of his eye and started to pull out – except the car had missed his turning and stood on the brakes which meant he was directly in Mike’s path! Wonderful! And if he’d hit him it would have been Mike’s fault !! While he’d been away passing traffic had been very busy, a pénichette had arrived and moored in front of us, filling the last of the available mooring space on the old quay. A car had arrived and there had been much banging of doors and clattering about before the car and the crew of the pénichette departed. Lovely clear night sky and not much local light pollution so we looked for meteors. Saw several, and a couple of satellites, before we went inside as it was starting to get quite chilly.

Saturday 7th August 2010 Briare. Day off.

Sunny and warm. Nice and cool, sheltered from the early sun by the trees on the far bank. Got on with the chores. After lunch Mike got another section of floorboards up to clean and check for oil on the bottom plates. 

Friday 6th August 2010 Ouzouër-sur-Trèzée to Briare. 7.76 kms 2 locks

Lock 5 Venon. C de Briare

Cool morning, blue sky, sunny with nice breeze. Mike went to get a loaf and I got on with the chores before setting off at ten following Charley. As we left Mike rang the VNF and booked the next lock with the keeper at the top lock. 1.8 kms to lock 6 Corenvaux (4.1m) which was ready for us. A young man in a van arrived as we got there. He insisted on taking my rope although it was an easy step off and back on. He pressed the button and we chatted. The 19th century lock house was empty and the roof was about to fall in, (it had been empty when our book about the C de Briare had been written in 1993 and they said it was going to ruin then) An uphill hireboat arrived as we left (now we know why we’d got a VNF helper). We went under the pipe bridge which carries (or should that be carried?) water pumped from the Loire up to the summit. I made a cuppa as we ran down the 1.3 kms pound to lock 5 Venon (3.50m). No one to assist at this one so I stepped off with the centre rope, pressed the button and got back on board. The lock house was inhabited, it looked very smart and still had its ancient metal lift bridge at the tail end of the chamber. 

Lock 4 Cognardiere on the old canal to Briare & the Loire

No more downhill locks and the first of the uphill ones would not be until a distance of 20 kms along the Latèral à la Loire on the far side of the famous Briare aqueduct. Followed Charley down into Briare. As we passed the old canal lock, Cognardière - the first of three still on the old 1830 “gabarit” of 31m leading down into the moorings in the canal basins, a cruiser left the lock coming uphill, turned into the canal in front of us and followed right behind Charley. Another one with a very smoky engine! Another cruiser went down into the lock he’d just left, which we noted was now automatic but still keeper activated. The old line of the canal leading down to the basins and the Loire was abandoned in the 1950’s and restored in 1987, although the access lock on to the river was not reinstated. We were now travelling on the “new” canal Latèral à la Loire, opened in 1896. We moored next to a very smelly bank (town doggy toilet, I cleaned up with a shovel after we tied up) just before the old commercial quay, which was now home to a hire base and pay moorings. We couldn’t get our stern next to the bank as it was on the bottom so Mike heaved a quant pole out to keep it out as traffic went past. It was 11.30 a.m. The trip boat from Briare went past heading uphill – a good test of our mooring lines. Set the satellite dish up, the line from the satellite just missing the trees, and tuned in TNT French terrestrial digital too. Lunch. Quite busy with hireboats and cruisers up and down. We had Bouygues on 3G again. First good Internet connection since Montargis on the 25th July, eleven days ago! 

Thursday 5th August 2010 Ouzouër-sur-Trèzée. Day off

Getting warmer. Blue sky and sunshine in the morning with clouds after lunch, cool wind blowing. The boat behind us left so Charley moved into the space after we’d moved up a couple of feet. All the other boats left during the first couple of hours after opening time except us, Charley and Anna-Maria. A péniche sized hotel boat went past mid-morning, pretty quiet after that. Got on with the chores. Mike did the monthly battery checks then had a clean up in the engine room until new arrivals started to knock pegs in around 5.00 p.m.

Wednesday 4th August 2010 Ouzouër-sur-Trèzée Day off.

Cool night. Grey clouds and rain. Corita left at nine heading downhill. Up early and we went shopping at Carrefour Market in Gien, next town downriver on the Loire from Briare (which we noted had renamed itself Briare-le-Canal!) Lucy (Sat Nav) tried to take us down a farm track again. Nice shop, got most of the stuff we needed and prices weren’t too bad, except the fish and I wouldn’t buy cod at 21,95€/kg. Had a funny session with the checkout assistant when I handed her what I thought were two coupons for 50c off hamburgers – there was no bar code and it said look inside the package for the coupon! I’d thrown the packaging away and kept the wrong thing!! Back home for midday. Charley had just arrived and had moored uphill of Anna-Maria. Not long after the quay filled up again and Pax moored where Corita had been. The French boat that had moored in front of us had used our mooring pin to tie his stern to! Lunch. It was the neighbours turn to have no phone signal – Orange had no network! Packed my laptop in its bag and went into Briare to get a good signal for the Internet and check the bank accounts and emails. We watched that then Sky at Night about a discovery of a huge star they christened The Monster. Must remember to lookout for the peak of the Perseid meteor shower 13th/14th August.

Tuesday 3rd August 2010 Abv Gazonne to Ouzouër-sur-Trèzée 4.94 kms 6 locks

DB moored above Gazonne lock 12

Cool night. Lots of grey clouds first thing, clearing later to become hot and sunny again. We set off and ran down to the lock for nine. Nothing else stirred. Amazing! There were loads of hireboats moored above the lock. The neighbours were staying to do some painting. Two feeds from the reservoirs were running into the canal’s summit level above the top lock. Spoke to the guy off Lara as he was on his way back to his boat. A very affable middle-aged resident keeper told us to hit the green button (we knew that already, OK) and when he asked if I wanted a rope on a bollard and I said no, not really, he said OK. So away we went, downhill, ropeless, slowly down lock 12 Gazonne (2.20m). It was very still and quiet in the morning cool. House martins were nesting under the bridge over the tail end of the lock and several herons flew over the misty water below the lock. Just 900m to the next lock. A new Halte Nautique had been made on the left bank and a full length Dutch Barge called Katarina-Elizabeth was moored on it, filling it, with a large campervan parked next to it.

Lock house Petit Chaloy lock 11

The empty lock house at lock 11, Petit Chaloy (3.50m) still looked very smart. The lock had a metal liftbridge over the tail end. As we were leaving two VNF man in a van arrived and lowered a hose (which was too short) into the canal – must be watering the gardens. We took bets on whether they would refill the lock! Lock 10 Notre Dame (3.90m) had no house on the lockside of the new canal – it was set further back on our left alongside the old canal. The VNF van arrived on the lockside as we left. Lock 9 Les Fées (the fairies) (3.40m) had another lovely old house and ancient outbuildings (we couldn’t decide if they were the original lock house or not) again empty, uninhabited. It also had a metal liftbridge over the tail end. A longer pound of 900m took us to lock 8 Moulin Neuf (3.60m) where we had a short wait while uphill boats cleared the lock, a small tjalk and a large yacht, both British flagged, then we went down. Another one which still had its metal liftbridge at the tail end. 1.8 kms to the next so I made a cuppa. Just had time to drink it before we arrived at lock 7 Ouzouër; two boats had just come up, a small British yacht and a hireboat. 

Notre Dame lock 10

I pressed the button to set the lock working then went a walk into the town to get a loaf for lunch. Met Mike bringing the boat in to moor on the quay below the lock. DB Corita was still moored at the top end of the quay below the road bridge and, after a gap, the hotel boat Anna-Maria was still moored there too (both had been there the day before when Mike left the car there). We went beyond them to the end of the quay. In no time the moorings filled up with hireboats in front of us and a small yacht and cruiser side by side behind us. The latter pulled our electric connection out while we were setting up the satellite and put a splitter in as only one of the two sockets worked. It would have been polite if they’d had said they were going to do that. After lunch we put the PCs on. 

17th century lock house at Moulin Neuf lock 8 on the old canal

Still no Internet. It loaded up on 3G and dropped out, wouldn’t work in the open on the roof and so we gave up. The lunchtime hireboats left so Mike decided to move our plug to the next post back up the quay next to the hotel boat as there was a spare unused socket – it didn’t work! The two behind us had gone and we never noticed them remove their splitter. Mike got ours out so the boat which had just moored in front of us could split with us. He asked them if they were going into the town would they ask at the Mairie for someone to reconnect the two sockets which don’t work. They said they would. Within ten minutes a lady from the Mairie arrived and reset the breakers in the locked boxes.

Monday 2nd August 2010 Abv Rogny to Abv Gazonne. 3.74 kms no locks

Clear sky blue and sunny start, more and more clouds as the day progressed, still hot, rain in the evening. Two boats that had moored overnight further along the summit pound, a three-decker Belgian cruiser that had been on the silo quay and a yacht that had moored by the bridge, went down Rogny flight at nine. Mike connected the Markon drive and I started the washing machine; when it had finished heating and started washing we set off along the summit. It was 10.00 a.m. It was peaceful and cool travelling along the short summit pound and with trees either side we were in the shade most of the way. The water level had gone down by about 20 cms as the VNF had been running water down Rogny and there didn’t seem to be much coming in via the feed from the reservoirs by the silo. Lots of the concrete edging had fallen in in places and the bare bank was suffering from erosion in the gaps. A few rocks had been added in places and where there was piling it was showing signs of rusting. Trees were starting to grow along both bank edges, from the height  and size of them I’d say they hadn’t been cut back in five years or more. Charley was moored on the non-towpath side (right) about 500m from Gazonne. Several cruisers, including Lara (French crew we'd met before), were moored on the towpath side down by the lock and more on the non-towpath side including a “dead” tjalk. We moored just after Charley. Nick was doing some painting and Diana was modifying their stern deck covers. Gave Mike a hand to get the bike off the roof and he went first to get some bread from Ouzouër-sur-Trèzée (the Trèzée being the name of the tributary of the Loire whose valley the canal now follows down to the Loire at Briare). Lunch, then Mike went to move the car from Dammarie to Ouzouër where there was a good car park by the moorings. When he went for bread there were several cruisers and two DBs moored there, when he dropped the car off there the cruisers had gone to be replaced by another DB called Corita. He had a few words with the crew. They said they were only on the boat for three months per year so they used wifi to access the Internet which they said they did every two or three days. (Don’t fancy doing more than emails on Wifi in a café, plus you are obliged to buy at least a coffee!) On his way back to the boat on the moped Mike booked the lock for nine the following morning with the lad who was on duty. Tried the Internet, nothing, not a peep, and the 'phone didn’t work either, no network and no alternatives. According to the French weather forecast, rain was due all day on Wednesday (so we’re definitely moving tomorrow) 

Sunday 1st August 2010 Abv Rogny. C de Briare. Day off.

Grey clouds to start the morning, sunny and hot later. The two loaded Dutch péniches, Traveller and Sonnepaerd, went down the locks at nine followed by the catamaran that moored between us and Charley overnight. One cruiser that had moored overnight below the top lock came up between the péniche lockings. Mike decided to change our water pump for the filtered water which meant moving the washing machine. He also checked under the floor boards for water (none) and oil on the bottom plates (he added some). Then he had to move the ‘fridge out to finish the rewiring of the new water pump. He said he’d leave checking under the floor panel in front of the ‘fridge as it was getting near to lunchtime. The phone didn’t work very well as it was a weak signal area. Mike watched the F1 from Hungary. After lunch there was brisk traffic up and down the locks, hire boats becoming more in evidence now.